The Children of the 14th of July
[The body of a murdered child lies on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, her doll beside her, after the Islamist terrorist attack there on July 14, 2016]
Given how little interest the American press showed in this attack even in the immediate aftermath and how quickly it completely forgot about it after that, you might want to consult Wikipedia if you are fuzzy on the details. In brief: a jihadist Tunisian living in France drove a cargo truck through massive crowds on a packed boulevard during 2016 Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, murdering 86 people, including 14 children, and injuring more than 450 more.
The most heart-breaking moment I encountered in the podcast involves Anne Gourvès, whose 12 year old daughter Amie was killed in the attack, giving a long, agonizingly detailed account of how she lived that awful night:
“All I had in my head was “They have to save her. They have to save her.” I tried to send a text to her father to tell him she wasn’t breathing, that it wasn’t going well. He got there just at that moment. Amie was already in cardiac arrest. They created a pretext to make us leave the room, saying we had to fill out some form. They put us in an adjoining room. The emergency physician came, she took my hands, and she said “We did what we could.” And I said “I know. Take care of the survivors, we need you.” Because there was still that little boy [who had been in the emergency room as they were bringing Amie in] who was screaming, he was about nine, about the same age as my younger daughter. And there are lots of other children to save. And…[she clears her throat, and it is the most emotionally fraught sound you will ever hear in your life] that’s it.”
This was not the end of the suffering of this poor mother, though. The French state, which proved ineffectual at protecting her child from a terrorist migrant who should have been in prison given his long record of criminal offenses including numerous serious incidents of domestic violence against his ex-wife, put her through still more agony by mutilating her daughter’s body during an autopsy performed without parental consent.
The damage of this act of terrorism extended well beyond the boulevard on which the victims died. One of the police investigators talks of the terrible job of looking at video evidence of the event over and over again, searching for investigative clues, and of the emotional damage this does to a normal human being. “It’s difficult to talk about it,” he says, his voice nearly breaking.
Another of the investigators tells of the depredations on the injured and dying committed by their own co-citizens. Looters stole purses, cell phones, and much else from the bodies of the dead. One of these monsters posted ads online in the wake of the attack, looking to sell the personal effects of victims. The officer’s reaction is precisely what we want from men in his position in such situations. He says he will always remember the images and the words to describe them (“Make an offer!”) this criminal put online as evidence of “how black the human soul can be.” When he showed the advertisement to his chief, he was told to locate the man and immediately take a team to his apartment. On arrival, they were refused entry, whereupon they battered the door down and seized the culprit. “It’s inadmissible,” he says bluntly, with moral certainty. Yes, it is.
The whole story is just endlessly sorrowful. People celebrating a national holiday, ripped from this world by a savage lunatic who should have been under police restraint before he ever planned his satanic deed, and then further preyed upon postmortem by their fellows and the authorities of the country they were fêting at the moment of their deaths.
I wrestle mightily with the idea of reconciliation and forgiveness of the authors of deeds such as this. I know I am called to it, but much of the time it seems so far beyond my capabilities that I am tempted to give up the idea altogether, to simply acknowledge that it is too much for me, too alien to the kind of creature I am. The charge is to hold out hope that even the demonic driver of that truck, even the coldly evil Mohammed Atta and his fellow 9/11 hijackers/murderers might repent. My hatred of what they have done makes it difficult to accept this. But I have to admit it is not impossible. I cannot know the contents of their hearts.
The question of their hearts is a spiritual one. As a social and political matter, we can operate only according to their acts. It was in this framework necessary and correct for the police to shoot the jihadist driver dead in the truck cabin, and it would have been correct for us, had he somehow survived his act of suicidal mass murder, to try Atta and convict him and take his life in insufficient but partial payment for those he extinguished.
In this way, socially, we endeavor to turn even these hateful and malevolent members of our species into a force for some good. They become bearers of an important message that might dissuade others dreaming of such transgression: “Here, fellows, hear this message we send to one and all. Do not act as this man did, for we hate his acts as much as it is possible to hate anything and we would see them ended forever, and if you commit such acts, or even think to plan them, and we can lay our hands upon you, you may count on your own utter destruction and the annihilation of your memory in this world.”
I admit I find relief in the ability to compartmentalize this way. It allows me a space to despise those who perform such despicable acts and to relish the thought of our collective vengeance against them, even while I know that sentiment must be restrained and monitored at all times, lest it succeed in completely smothering the spiritual flame of merciful compassion.
Hi all,
I’ve been at this project now for more than six months. Hardly seems possible, but I just checked the calendar and I believe that is the right math.
So, this is a note to you: Thank you.
I’m tremendously flattered by your interest in what I have to say about life, art, politics, death and I’m grateful that you read my ramblings. Every writer desires to be read (Lovecraft’s letter accompanying his submission to an editor notwithstanding) and thus owes a debt that cannot really be repaid to readers, however much the writer sometimes pretends not to recognize this (it’s part of the persona, you see…).
So that’s something I want to be sure to say and say again: THANK YOU.
Now, the other reason for this little note.
I finally got around to doing the technical stuff necessary to provide a paid subscription option.
What does a paid option mean?
It means it’s an option. At present, everything on this account remains open to all subscribers, paid or free. Even if I move at some currently unforeseen point to separating material here into paid and unpaid categories, I still plan to always make the great bulk of it available when it’s produced without cost to everyone interested in seeing it. I’m tremendously appreciative that you read this site and want to do everything I can to ensure you continue to be interested in doing so.
I am hopeful though, and I make so bold as to ask, that if you have a few extra dollars rattling around, you’ll consider kicking some of them my way to help make it more feasible for me to spend more time on this project.
Inevitably, and despite my deepest feelings about writing, I think at least a bit about possible material returns when I am allocating time to writing projects. I have two kids who eat and are in constant need of new clothes and a house in which things are constantly breaking down. Add to that the fact that, to my great regret, I do not have infinite time to dedicate to writing, and it emerges necessarily that sometimes the possibility of writing things for pay trumps writing things here. This is so even though I much prefer writing here precisely because it allows me more freedom to engage with the topics I find most interesting.
If I can generate some paid subscriptions, then, I can spend more time doing this writing, the writing I most care about, and the writing that I hope you find valuable. If I generate enough, I may even finally find enough time and energy to get around to dipping my toes into Podcast World, which is professionally speaking probably the last thing I should do, given my tendency to say things that get me into trouble, but YOLO, as I’ve heard they say.
I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription and, whatever your decision on that, I look forward to writing more for you as All Things Rhapsodical Phase II gets underway. Should you decide to “go paid,” you need only click the button below and it should lead you in the right direction.
Cheers, and thanks again! And very special thanks to those who have already switched to a paid subscription!
ATR